With a reluctant shrug of his shoulders, Simms poured another cup of coffee and sat on the side of his bunk while Wallace inserted the story spool in the audio playback.
They settled themselves and listened as a deep voice began to speak in a loud whisper.
"... The operation will take place on the night of October twenty-ninth at exactly twenty-one hundred hours. You will make your approach from section eleven, M quadrant—"
Simms jumped up abruptly and switched off the playback. Turning to Wallace, he pleaded, "I can't listen to it again! I know it by heart. Instructions on how to get to the time capsule; instructions on what to take, and how to build an adjustable light-key after we get the plans; instructions on how to hijack the first ship and what to take. Orders, information, instructions! I'm sick of listening. If you want to, go ahead, but I'm going to work on the ship!"
"O.K., O.K.," said Wallace, getting up. "Don't blow your jets. I hate the thing as much as you do. Wait a minute and I'll go with you."
The two men began climbing into space suits. In a few minutes they were dressed in black plastic suits with small round clear plastic helmets. They stepped into the air lock on one side of the room and closed a heavy door. Wallace adjusted the valve in the chamber and watched the needle drop until it showed zero.
"O.K.," said Wallace over his helmet spacephones. "All the air's out. Open the outer lock."
Simms cranked the heavy handle, and the door in the opposite wall of the chamber slowly swung open. They stepped out into the airless black void of space and onto the surface of an asteroid, drifting in the thickest part of the belt. Surrounding the asteroid were countless smaller secondary satellites circling the mother body like a wide curving blanket. The mother body was perfectly hidden from outside observation. It made a perfect base of operations for the two space pirates.
